Swir-u. News digest
Clinton, Bush trade personal insults, spar on economy
Bill Clinton and George 3ush
clashed over the economy on Thurs
day, and swapped uncommonly per
sonal insults in their run for the White
House. The president said “two bozos”
are on the Democratic ticket, while
Clinton accused his rival of saying
“incredible, incredible dishonest
things.”
v Bush pressed his
underdog’s cam
paign in part by
mentioning his dog.
“My dog Millie
knows more about
foreign affairs than
these two bozos,”
he said in Michigan
of Clinton and his running male.
Bush also stressed over and over
that the economy is on the road to
recovery. “Not as sick as the oppo
sition would have you believe,” he
said.
Clinton said, “We arc 18 months
after the bottom of the recession and
we are still doing worse than at any
comparable period since before World
War II.”
Ross Perot’s name turned up in the
strangest place. Vandals doctored the
50-foot letters of a sign that says
HOLLYWOOD in the hills above
Los Angeles to read: PEROT WOOD.
Most public polls showed Clinton
with a lead in single digits. His aides
insisted their margin was holding.
“We’ve got a November surprise
for Bill Clinton, and that is George
Bush is going to be re-elected,” said
Vice President Dan Quaylc.
Democratic vice presidential can
didate A1 Gore joined in. Texas is a
dead heat, he said.
Perot stayed out of public view in
preparation for an evening appear
ance on CNN’s “Larry King Live.”
His spokeswoman, Sharon Holman,
complained that the news media was
inaccurately depicting the race as a
two-way competition between the
president and his Democratic chal
lenger.
“The American people do not con -
sider this only a Bush-Clinton race,”
she said.
CIA refused to share information
on Iraqi firms, documents show
WASHINGTON—ThcCIA knew
before the Gulf War that at least five
rcc ipicn ts of U. S. ex ports to Iraq were
defense industries, but it did not tell
the Commerce Department, which
approved the sales, documents show.
The Commerce Department ap
proved some S1.5 billion in exports to
Iraq from 1985 to 1990, saying most
were not designated for military use.
Information revealed Thursday on
both sides of the Atlantic indicated
that the CIA had information about
Iraqi defense industry purchases both
in the United States and Britain.
Many of the Iraqi companies that
bought U.S. technology legally turn
out to have been military industries
with innocuous sounding names that
didn’t set off alarms at thcCommcrcc
Department. In any case, the depart
ment was under White House orders
to encourage trade with Iraq.
The Cl A, and possibly the Defense
Intelligence Aecncv, knew the true
nature of some of the Iraqi compa
nies, according to a congressional
investigator’s documents obtained
Thursday by The Associated Press.
On Jan. 29, 1991, the senior con
gressional investigator met with CIA
officials to ask what the agency had
known about 25 of the Iraqi end users
listed on U.S. export licenses, and
whether the agency had notified the
Commerce Department.
F. Douglas Whilehouse, who
headed the CIA’s committee on tech
nology transfer, said he had run a
computer check comparing the 25
end users against a CIA data bank,
according to the notes made by the
investigator, who also was inter
viewed on the grounds that he not be
identified.
Whilehouse said he had come up
with “about five hits” — five compa
nies about which the CIA had infor
mation, said the investigator. He said
the CIA told him it did not supply the
information to the Commerce De
partment because it was never asked
to do so.
Complaints about the CIA’s reluc
tance to share information with other
government agencies arc legion. The
problem was recently underscored in
the case of an Italian bank branch in
Atlanta that approved unauthorized
loans to Iraq.
In a message to agency employees
this week, CIA Director Robert Gates
said he had asked his inspector gen
eral to examine the records system of
the Directorate of Operations and to
recommend changes that will “put an
end to difficulties in responding
promptly to congressional and other
inquiries.”
Critics of the CIA argue that the
agency has an instinctive mistrust of
sharing information with outsiders,
partly out of fear of compromising its
sources, and that no amount of records
reforms will help.
Clinton delivered a speech on the
economy in Michigan and had an
other one on AIDS schcd8lcd lor later
in New Jersey.
He lashed out at B ush as a “desper
ate person who just wants to hold
power_And if you’re totally shame
less and somebody tells you you re
not telling the truth and you keep on
doing it anyway, which is what Bush
docs, it’s hard for the American people
to know what to make of it.”
Clinton said Bush says “incred
ible, incredible dishonest things,” and
aides said he was referring to radio
commercials the Republican presi
dent is airing in several states.
bush denied Clinton saccusauons,
and criticized the media liberally for
what he said was overly pessimistic
reporting on the economy.
As for the economy itself, he said:
“A lot of people arc hurling, but
we’re growing. And that is the key
factor,” he said in an appearance on
CBS’ “This Morning.” He pointed to
this week’s report showing economic
growth was up 2.7 percent in the most
recent quarter, more than had been
predicted.
“That’s a pretty darned good turn
around here, pretty beginnings, not
robust growth, but it’s far more im
pressive than, obviously, all these
economists had been predicting,” Bush
said.
—■-——i
Cleaner, costlier gasoline
required for urban drivers
WASHINGTON—This winter
automobiles in most American ur
ban areas will be polluting less,
thanks to a cleaner burning, pep
pier gasoline required by the gov
ernment.
As a result of the regulation that
takes effect Sunday, carbon mon
oxide emissions from automobiles
and small trucks will be sharply
reduced in 39 urban areas from
Boston to San Diego, say air qual
ity experts.
“This is the first big program
under the Clean Air Act to go into
effect,” said Dick Wilson of the
Environmental Protection Agency.
Under the two-year-old law,
service stations in the 39 areas,
which don’t meet carbon monox
ide health standards, will be al
lowed to sell only gasoline contain
ing an additive that provides more
oxygen, thereby allowing it to burn
cleaner.
The new blend must be used
over a four-io-scvcn-month period
depending on the severity of air
pollution. The EPA estimates that
the new gasoline will result in a
drop of about 20 percent in carbon
monoxide emissions from cars and
trucks.
Carbon monoxide is emitted
when a vehicle’s engine is wann
ing up, and is a greater problem in
winter and in high-traffic areas.
Even in relatively mild concentra
tions, it can cause dizziness, head
aches and problems for elderly
people with heart conditions.
The new “oxygenated” gasoline
blcndscut down on carbon monox
ide emissions because the gas bums
cleaner during warm-up, say EPA
officials.
Oil companies say itcosls3 to 4
cents more a gallon to produce the
oxygenated fuel. Motorists also may
have to buy more gasoline because
the new blend is less fuel efficient.
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t
Horse race campaign
Pre-election polls play increasing role
It’s an old complaint: Prc-elcction polls arc
turning the Republic’s greatest deliberative
exercise into something as unseemly as the
fourth race at Aqueduct.
This season the
charge has new ur
- gency, as poll results
' dominate the closing
days of the presiden
tial campaign and
■) threaten to shape the
very outcome of the
race.
On Thursday, Presi
) dent Bush’s rise in the
pells was all over the
airwaves and across Page One in New York’s
tabloids. “CLOSER” reported Newsday, while
7 the New York Post had Bush “BREATHING
7 DOWN BILL’S NECK.” The president, head
lined the Daily News, had pulled off “A LATE
POLL VAULT.”
7 It’s all part of what University of Virginia
political scientist Larry Sabalo has called “the
worst orgy of polling in American history.”
Two television networks update their clcc
/ lion polls daily, giving a fresh answer to the one
question that matters most in a political cam
, paign: Who’s ahead?
L The number of national presidential election
/ campaign polls increased from three in 1972 to
259 four years ago. This year, a half-dozen
I polling organizations arc dialing tens of thou
h sands of people across the nation in the twe
/ weeks before the election, and hundreds of state
and local news organizations and candidate;
arc conducting their own polls.
7 The Seattle Times is notamong them. “Who’;
/ ahead” polls arc “the junk food of our demo
cratic process,” executive editor Michael R.
Fancher wrote in a column this month. He
admits, “readers love to talk about them.”
That doesn’t mean everyone wants to talk to
the pollsters. For those who don’t, Daniel S.
Greenberg, a syndicated columnist specializ
ing in scientific issues, has a homemade rem
edy: When the pollster calls and asks for your
opinion, preference or plans, simply respond:
“None of your business, thank you.”
- 44-—
Don’t believe these crazy
polls! Don’t believe these
nutty pollsters!
— Bush
-ft "
Even the candidate^can grow impatient at
the barrage of polling. Earlier this month, when
many polls had Bush with a double-digit defi
cit, he told a crowd in Cornelia, Ga: “Don’t
believe these crazy polls! Don’t believe these
nutty pollsters!”
On Thursday, Bush said in Michigan, “I’m
encouraged by the way these polls that we live
and die by arc shaping up.”
“We’re seeing an excessive amount of horse
race analysis,” said Lee Miringoff, director ol
the Marisl Institute for Public Opinion and
normally an exuberant advocate of polls and
polling.
, “There might be some front-runner voters
out there who want to vote for a winner, but
; there aren’t many,” says Guy Molyneux, coor
dinator of polling for Cable News Network.
; “And they would only add a bit to a winner’s
margin of victory.”
- --—I
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